From This is Money:
A combination of borrowers paying off their debts while interest rates are low and the ongoing squeeze in the mortgage market led to homeowners paying back £418m more than they borrowed in July.
The newfound trend for thrift has also extended to Britons’ love affair with credit cards, overdrafts and personal loans, with £200m more paid back than borrowed in consumer credit.
The Bank of England said this was the first time net mortgage lending has been negative since it started compiling figures in their current format in 1993.
The number of mortgages being taken out for home purchases continued to rise, to reach 50,123 in July, 20% above the six month average, with the amount borrowed rising to £6.7bn, 34% above the six-month average
Clearing their debts is a sensible course of action for many heavily indebted British homeowners, but does not spell good news for a swift recovery from recession with less cash going into the economy.
The Bank of England figures sho…
Leave a Reply